Science and the skinwalker

“Hunt for the Skinwalker” is a book by Colm Kelleher, a scientist with an interest in fringe subjects, and George Knapp, a reporter from Vegas mostly known for having reported the UFO-conspiracy story of Bob Lazar to a wider audience. Their book deals with paranormal events on the so-called Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. I admit I never heard of the place until I watched a sensationalist episode of “Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura”, darkly implying that billionaire entrepreneur Robert Bigelow (who owns the ranch) knows The Truth About Aliens, or something equally sinister. However, it seems that the Skinwalker Ranch is fairly well known, and although the book never discloses its exact location, anyone can easily find it through a web search.

The ranch originally belonged to a family of cattle breeders, called the Gormans in the book. After experiencing a number of bizarre events, ranging from cattle mutilations to UFOs and monsters, the Gormans sold the ranch to Bigelow, who is seriously interested in UFOs and psychic research. Bigelow invited a group of scientists, called NIDS, to the ranch in the hope of obtaining evidence of the paranormal. Kelleher was one of the team members, while Knapp was the only reporter allowed access to NIDS' findings. In the end, NIDS didn't find any evidence for paranormal activity that would pass strict scientific peer review, but the team members did experience some of the haunting themselves. They also interviewed the Gormans and their neighbors, including Utes at a nearby Native reservation, all of whom told similar-sounding stories of encounters with unknown phenomena. The “skinwalker” of the book's title is a Native witch whose knowledge of black magic allows her (or him) to shape-shift in pursuit of destructive and evil ends. According to web sources, the Skinwalker Ranch is strictly off limits to the public, and it's possible that Bigelow is still conducting some kind of research on the premises, the results of which have not been published.

A hard boiled skeptic could claim that many of the phenomena described in the book are hallucinations, delusions or even hoaxes (the “best” events were only witnessed by Tom Gorman, not by the NIDS scientists). No physical evidence of alien activity were ever found (unless you count the bizarre cattle mutilations as such evidence). What perhaps lends the hauntings a certain plausibility is that similar events have been reported elsewhere. The Bigfoot-UFO connection isn't unknown from other parts of the United States, for instance. The most “respectable” fringe theory about such events is that the witnesses are being induced to hallucinate by earth lights, ball lightning or rare plasmas from the atmosphere. Curiously, no evidence of electromagnetic anomalies were found on the Gorman ranch.

Kelleher and Knapp go further in their speculations. They have an obvious sympathy for Jacques Vallée and John Keel, and mention Patrick Harpur's “Daimonic Reality”. The authors believe that quantum physics prove the existence of other dimensions (or at least their possibility). They eventually land in a kind of “occult” worldview in which the entire cosmos is filled with living creatures who either don't know of our existence, or don't care, and whose activities we humans can't really fathom, anymore than a colony of ants can understand a nearby ten-lane highway. The events at the Utah ranch were trickster-like, and therefore difficult to measure scientifically. The authors don't seem to know how to deal with this, but suggest that perhaps a more hands-on approach is necessary, mentioning scientists who work together with shamans. Neither Kelleher nor Knapp believes that we are dealing with a “conspiracy” in the human sense, nor with “classical” extraterrestrials.

Although “Hunt for the Skinwalker” describes some pretty outlandish events, and occasionally strays into the sensationalist (yes, the Knights Templar make a brief guest appearance), most of the book is surprisingly sober, at least relatively speaking. The book could be read by skeptics who want to know how a group of supposedly scientific investigators deal with the supernatural, and fall short. Open-minded skeptics might also ask themselves if NIDS could have done something to improve their score, or whether the phenomenon, although real, is too elusive for our scientific instruments. After all, the traditional way to deal with “UFOs”, “monsters” and tricky ghosts is indeed the shamanic way...

As I jokingly wrote in my review of Jesse Ventura's TV show: Robert Bigelow and his friends from the military may indeed know something, but probably not more than your average friendly neighborhood Theosophist!